Camp Ignite sparks girls’ interest in firefighting career

Female firefighters show girls what it takes to succeed in field

Jimena Alarcon, 18, joined a group of young women to try her hand at being a firefighter Thursday,August 09, 2012 at Firehall #10 at UBC in Vancouver. the 4-day Camp Ignite introduces girls to firefighting as well as other search and rescue related activities.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider
, PNG

Sabrina Mathias always knew she wanted to be a firefighter. While friends covered their ears as fire trucks wailed past, Mathias would look on, intrigued, wondering how everything worked.

The 18-year-old was curious about why there were always more men than women looking out the windows.

This week, a group of female firefighters from across the Lower Mainland are introducing girls like Mathias to their profession, and assuring them they have a place on those fire trucks, too.

Camp Ignite, a four-day camp now in its second year, aims to teach girls aged 16 to 18 firefighting and search and rescue skills. The group, which consists of 17 girls from across Metro Vancouver, learns everything from how to connect a hose to a fire hydrant — no easy task with a five-inch-thick hose in the sweltering heat — to the basics of ascending a fire truck crane. The main objective of the camp, however, is about more than teaching girls how to become firefighters.

“I like to prove to people that no matter who you are, or where you come from, you can do anything if you set your mind to it,” said Mathias. “Camp Ignite has shown me that I can do anything. Even though I am a woman, I can do it. I know I can.”

It’s exactly the kind of spirit co-organizer Jenn Dawkins hopes to inspire. A Vancouver firefighter herself, Dawkins created the kind of camp she wishes she’d had when she joined the force 12 and a half years ago.

“This group is something exciting to show these kids that they can do whatever they want in life,” said Dawkins, who started the camp with colleague Carla Penman. “It’s about empowering these girls. We’re using firefighting as that venue to make that happen.”

Firefighting has long been considered a male-dominated profession, and men are often the faces of the job in popular media. Dawkins pointed out that because most girls associate firefighting with men, the notion that they’re just as capable of doing the job never crosses their mind.

“It just never occurs to them,” said Dawkins. “You don’t see the television commercials, you don’t see the women firefighters. Fifty bucks says that the two women on that brand new [Chicago Fire] television show are paramedics and not firefighters.”

Female firefighters also encounter sexism and discrimination in the force as they try to fit in with male colleagues — problems that are becoming non-issues as more emphasis is placed on physical ability rather than physical attributes, said Dawkins.

“It’s changed so much over the last 15 years,” she said. “There have been barriers, there’s no question, but we’ve progressed from that. It’s like, ‘Can you do the job? Great.’ People are starting to recognize that we’re all different and that makes us a good team.”

The camp, which runs from Thursday to Sunday, will be hosted in Vancouver, New Westminster and North Vancouver, and participants will get a chance to complete a University of B.C. ropes course as well as the Grouse Grind.

The hands-on schedule doesn’t intimidate Mathias, who hopes to enrol at the Justice Institute of B.C. next fall. The Pitt Meadows secondary senior said she’s in this for the long run.

“Seeing other people help each other, saving lives and being there in the community ... I know this is what I want to do now.”

Jimena Alarcon, 18, joined a group of young women to try her hand at being a firefighter Thursday,August 09, 2012 at Firehall #10 at UBC in Vancouver. the 4-day Camp Ignite introduces girls to firefighting as well as other search and rescue related activities.

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